


Andy

by Heitan_J



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, No Explanations, Sorry Not Sorry, minor suggestions of reanimation, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2400233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heitan_J/pseuds/Heitan_J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andy finds Roversdell</p>
            </blockquote>





	Andy

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short thing that's been knocking around in my head. idk, I probably shouldn't post it, but. Whatever. The plan was to make this a chaptered story, but... let's not hold our breaths on that. Best to treat it like a one-shot. Let me know what you think of it.

Roversdell was just as quiet and peaceful as Andy had thought. The streets were quiet, and the people were all very nice, especially the woman that ran the bed and breakfast he’d checked into.  


She had told him all about the town, and lots of interesting places to visit. She had plied him with tea and cookies and sandwiches, and never once did she give him a Look. The one that meant he’d made her uncomfortable and she wanted him to leave.  


Not even when Andy came downstairs the next morning and told her about sitting and listening to the trees talking.  


“What do trees talk about?” Mrs. Binder had asked, settling next to him with both of their breakfasts. “I’ve always wondered that.”  


After a long, unsure moment, Andy judged the older woman to not be making fun of him, and he shrugged. “I dunno. They were talking in Tree, so I couldn’t understand them. But they seemed happy enough.”  


“Well, that’s good enough for me, then,” Mrs. B nodded, apparently satisfied. “So long as the trees aren’t upset. It’d be a terrible refection on our little town if we couldn’t even look after the wellbeing of our trees. Eat up, Andy boy, you’re all but bone and skin! Don’t you worry, though. By the time you check out, I’ll have you as fat and happy as my poor dead husband.”  


“Your husband died?” Andy asked, brow furrowing.  


Mrs. B sighed and brushed at her perfectly clean apron. “Yes, the poor dear. Heart failure. I keep his spirit alive with this little place, though,” Mrs. B perked up. She motioned to the portrait above the fireplace. “That’s Uruth, up there.”  


Andy studied the exceptionally large man in the frame, and then the table full of delicious breakfasts, and then Mrs. B. “I’m sure he lived a very happy life with you,” he said with a faint smile.  


Mrs. B smiled dreamily. “We both had a very happy life, especially that last year.” She refocused on Andy. “You’re a sweet boy, Andy. I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time here in our little hamlet.”  


“I bet I will if everyone’s so nice, Mrs. Binder.” And Andy dug into his breakfast with determination. 

  
\----  


That day, Andy wandered around the town a bit, the bustle of people wholly different from the city. It was a bit slower, and with more smiling and waving to friends. Not as many cars, and there were some horses.  


As Andy took up a place out of the way near the main square, he watched people go by and felt a bit of himself settle.  


This felt like ‘home’, he thought drowsily from his perch on the railing of a store—might be a restaurant, he wasn’t sure, but it was warm there, and no one yelled at him, and there was a post against his back that was surprisingly comfy.  


 _This town,_ Andy thought as he drifted into a nap in the sun, _is warm. Warm like Mom and Dad and Aunt and Sister in the Before. Warm like home. I’ve never been to a town so warm. Ah, it’s so nice..._  


A moment later, there was a hand on his arm, jolting him from a golden-hued dreamless sleep. Andy blinked at the woman for a moment, realized he was still on the railing and the sun was quite gone, and sat up.  


“I’m sorry,” Andy told the woman, who was wearing an apron and probably worked there. A yawn crept up on Andy, and he tried to talk around it. “I didn’t realize that it was so late.”  


The concerned lines around the woman’s face eased into a smile. “Well, no harm done now, so don’t you worry over it,” she told him, then eyed the railing. “Though I can’t see how that was any kind of comfortable for you, it seems you were enjoying your nap in the sun just as nice as any of the cats around here, so I didn’t have the heart to wake you. But the sun’s setting, and you’ll catch your death out there, so I thought I might as well come wake you. Come on inside, I’ll put on a pot of coffee. Do you drink coffee?”  


Andy nodded, grinning as he followed her inside. “Can’t imagine life without it.”  


The inside was, as he’d thought, a diner. Though only one or two people lingered around the tables, so maybe they were close to closing. Andy let the lady shoo him towards the bar up front, and glanced the clock on the wall behind the bar. Almost six.  


“If you’re closing up, you don’t have to go through any trouble for me, ma’am,” Andy told her as she came around.  


The woman looked briefly startled, then grinned. “I thought you looked new around here, luv. My name’s Lizzy Forsyth, I own the Old Hag.” She motioned vaguely around, and Andy remembered suddenly a hanging sign out front with that name on it.  


“We’re open all day and night,” Lizzy continued, putting a pot of coffee together and letting it steep. “This here’s just the lull for the in-between. Our night rush will start pretty soon after full sun-down. Next half hour, I’d guess.”  


“Oh. I didn’t expect a place like that here.” Andy held out his hand. “I’m Andy. It’s nice to meet you, Lizzy.”  


Lizzy’s grin bared teeth at him in a mostly friendly way, and shook his hand quickly before pulling away. “Roversdell has a lot of the unexpected.”  
She filled the cup in front of him, and Andy took an appreciative sip, humming low in his throat as he savored the warmth. “That’s sorta what Mrs. Binder was telling me yesterday, I think.”  


Lizzy blinked, something leaving her eyes that Andy hadn’t noticed was there until it was gone. Something that had been sharp, and a little dangerous. Though it was gone now, and Lizzy only stood there with surprise across her face.  


“You’re staying with Madam B?”  


Andy nodded, cradling the mug for warmth, though it was nearly too hot. “I got in early yesterday, and Mrs. Binder decided I was underfed,” he confessed with a wry grin. “She’s very pleasant company, though, and talked a lot about the town and its’ founding. It’s a very nice history.”  


Lizzy blinked, a tiny furrow wrinkling her forehead. “It…is? She, uh, told you…?”  
Andy hummed an agreement as he drained the last of the coffee. Then he gave Lizzy an uncertain look, because she was looking pretty confused herself. “Haven’t you heard about how people—homeless, wanderers, and lonely people—stumbled into the valley and decided to stay? Mrs. B makes it sound a lot more amazing, but I think that’s the gist of it. She said ‘Roversdell was found by the lost, and only the lost could find it.’ I thought that was very nice, don’t you? It makes it sound like people without homes aren’t really homeless, just that they haven’t found the right one yet.”  


Lizzy’s strange expression smoothed away, and she smiled at Andy warmly. “Yes, Andy. It is a very nice thought.”  


Soon after, Lizzy got pulled away for dinner prep. Though she left him the rest of the coffee and firm orders to wait a bit and she’d get him something to eat. Andy eyed the large pot, and privately thought that if he even finished half of it, he’d be jittery and awake for the next three days.  


“Ah! Just missed her,” a man complained, appearing at Andy’s elbow and slumping onto the counter to stare piteously at the door Lizzy had gone through.  


Andy glanced at the stranger, a bad feeling tingling up from his gut. He took a long sip from his mug to try and drown it out. Then the man turned to Andy, and Andy went very still.  


“Oh, man, thank god! She left the pot with you,” the man was saying, grinning at Andy. “Hey, I don’t suppose you’d mind sharing a cup? Lizzy makes the world’s best coffee, and I have been _jonesing ___for it all day.” The man shoved a hand at Andy, still smiling. “Name’s Mitch. Mitchell Reed, nice to meetcha. You look new. Are you new around here?”  


“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Andy said, the words coming out slow from a mouth that felt numb.  


Mitch hesitated, looking worried as he focused on Andy and not the coffee pot. “What?”  


“They get mad,” Andy heard himself say distantly, voice gone flat and quiet. He looked down and saw his hands were tight around his mug. And it was starting to shake. “Bad Thing,” he murmured, eyes drawn back up to the man sitting next to him. “It’s…a Bad Thing…they’ll send me away.”  


Andy met the man’s gaze, and saw him flinch. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Andy whispered.  


Silence fell tense and heavy between them. Andy stared at the man, knowing he should turn away, back to his coffee and warmth and the tentative happiness that had started to grow in him since he’d gotten to Roversdell.  


But he couldn’t. Couldn’t move his eyes away. This wasn’t supposed to happen again. Andy didn’t even know this man. Mitchell Reed, his mind whispered, and there was a creaking sound inside his head. _Creak creak, creak creak. ___Like wood. Like a rocking chair. Back, and forth.  


Back.  


_His mama’s skirt was dirty, but she didn’t seem to mind._  


And forth.  


 _Sister was sitting by her toys, but she wasn’t playing with them why wasn’t she playing she always played with her toys.  
_

“Andy boy?”  


Andy blinked, head coming up as warm hands gently took his. Then he was looking at Mrs. Binder.  


Mrs. B smiled at him, nothing flinching around her eyes. “I see Lizzy tried to lure you away from my home cooking, sweet Andy. I’ve had a stew in the makings all day. Won’t you come eat with a poor lonely old woman?”  


The slow feeling was fading, but Andy still felt…separate. Not fully there, and he was forgetting something, he was sure of it. Something…  


Mrs. B waited with her warm hands around his, patient and unworried. Andy liked her, he remembered. She told nice stories, and she never gave him odd looks.  


Andy stood slowly, his mind going quiet now in a way that made him feel like he was leaving something important. Something, just behind him, that called. If he turned around…  


Andy shook his head, the last of the molasses-like feeling slipping away. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t, or the Bad Thing would come back.  


He understood now that he’d slipped. Something had happened at the counter after Lizzy had left. Something he couldn’t let himself think about. Something that slipped him back into the past, and brought his mind to that dangerous breaking point.  


“I don’t think I’ll go back to Lizzy’s place,” Andy said after they had walked a ways down the road.  


“That’s a shame,” Mrs. Binder replied, her arm tucked into his. “She’s such a nice girl.”  


“I liked her,” Andy agreed, his brow furrowing. “What…happened? Do you know?”  


Mrs. B patted Andy’s arm with a gentle smile. “Don’t you worry about that just yet, Andy boy. Some good food and a bit of rest, and I’m sure you’ll be feeling better.”  


“I usually have to leave,” Andy told her as they reached her home and set about dinner. “When the Bad Thing happens, they don’t want me anymore. I’m…wrong, somehow.”  


“Oh, sweets,” Mrs. Binder sighed. “No, not wrong. Just different, is all. And if there’s any place to be different in, Roversdell is the best place. We’re all a bit…different here.”  


Andy didn’t say anything the rest of the night, half lost in his head.  


He didn’t sleep that night, the ghosts of his past moving just behind his eyes. Memories flickered, like light from a fire, and Andy sat in front of his bedroom window, staring out into the forest sightlessly. Locked away inside his head, the memories of that time unfolded piece by piece, and Andy’s mind began to scream. A long, soundless thing of fear and anger and horror.  


But Mrs. Binder never came to send him away. And in the morning, she made him eat a huge breakfast, and then sit with her in the warm den.  


She was doing something with long metal needles and several different balls of thread. Clack clack clack clack. The sound was soothing in its’ steady pace, and Andy found himself dozing. Each time he would nod off, when he woke, his head felt a little clearer. The way it usually did only after a few new towns and a lot of traveling.  


Andy sat up with a yawn, rubbing his eyes, before looking over at Mrs. B, who was snipping off the lengths of thread and tying the ends of the…thing she had knitted. Andy’s brows drew down when he looked at what was in her lap.  


“What’s—” Andy stopped, not really sure he wanted to know.  


Mrs. B chuckled, though, and lifted the gnarled mass of black and green and yellow and red from her lap. “Yes, it’s a bit unsightly, isn’t it? Do me a favor, Andy boy, and go throw this on the fire.” She motioned to the fireplace, where there was indeed a quiet fire roasting.  


Andy took it from her, but hesitated. “Are you sure you want to burn it?” he wondered. “You worked hard on it, right?”  


Mrs. B only smiled and patted his cheek. “That was always meant for the fire, dear. Some things just are.”  


Andy crouched down by the fireplace, but still didn’t throw it in. He held it cradled in his hands, this awful, ugly thing. And wondered where he could put it in his room where he wouldn’t have to look at it, but it could still be around.  


It made no sense.  


Andy didn’t want it, he just didn’t want to throw it away. He hated it, but it was right there in his hands. This hateful thing that Mrs. B had made and given to him, why did he need to throw it away?  


" _Boy._ ” Mrs. Binder’s voice snapped out, harsh and loud as Andy’d never heard it before, making him jump and bang his knee on the hearth. “ _Throw it in._ ”  


Andy shook, trembled, but he balled it up, and in one swift motion, it was in the fire. Burning up. Nothing left but ashes that were indistinguishable from the logs. And sitting there, without quite knowing why, Andy began to cry.


End file.
